The Elimination: A Survivor of the Khmer Rouge Confronts His Past and the Commandant of the Killing Fields. Rithy Panh is an internationally and critically acclaimed Cambodian documentary film director and screenwriter. Rithy Panh was a young boy when Khmer Rouge revolutionaries arrived in Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975.
Starting that day, he and his family were designated “new people”—the revolution’s code for those who needed “re-education”—and forcibly evacuated out of the city. That day began a terrifying experience that gradually took away most of his family, forcing Rithy to survive a series of brutal, and often arbitrarily cruel, ordeals.
In The Elimination, Rithy tells his story in vivid prose, expertly immersing the reader in his experience. Rithy is best known as a filmmaker, and that comes through.
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Duch remembers specific details of some individual prisoners and their torture, while still trying to minimize his role as merely a man doing his job.
The interview segments provide a resonating glimpse into the psyche of a torturer and killer. Today, the former site of S-21 serves as a museum about the genocide, and films like Rithy’s own S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine have helped educate the public about the atrocities committed by Pol Pot and his regime. Rithy Panh’s book is another important and fascinating document in that process.
A filmmaker and a survivor, who lost his whole family at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. There is just something chilling and powerful reading this history from someone who had a firsthand view. I appreciated the firsthand accounts of what life was really like under Khmer rule. That 's probably the closest I 've ever come to a real life horror story. But aside from that, I found the story hard to
Imagine being younger and forced to live in horrible conditions. In Loung Ung’s memoir, First They Killed My Father, she explains how she feels about the horrific conditions she was going through as a child of war. To begin with when Ung was younger her life was threatened on a daily basis because of her beliefs. For example in the the text explains ,“Capitalist should be shot and killed” (Ung #312).
“The Khmer Rouge demanded,’Where’s the gun you bought last week?’ My uncle told him the truth, ‘I didn’t buy any gun.’ The Khmer Rouge raised his M-16 rifle and shot my uncle in the chest.
Within the novel The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien is attempting to show how hard it is in war and the things you have to carry to be able to make it through it morally and in order to survive. This book is about the Vietnam War and a group of soldiers that move together encountering many tasks and also talks about the things they must carry to survive. The author wrote this book to talk about his experiences and to show people that do not know how it is in a war a little bit of the reality of a war and how affecting it is on a person. The author Tim O’Brien wrote this book for the general public to read. He is the narrator of this book and throughout the book, he writes as though he is talking to the reader.
The vast majority of the population finds Asia to consist of: China, Japan, and India; however, on any ordinary day in Cambodia, the social normality of mass starvation led too many withering lives of innocent prisoners. With the staggering displacement of about twenty-five percent of the population, Pol Pot succeeded in becoming an indirect murderer. In addition, estate possessions were seized by the Khmer Rouge while many of these guiltless captives suffered in these inhumane punishments. Impecunious and malnourished, many of these impoverished people struggled in the attempt to survive this barbarous time period. Likewise, the prisoners of the Holocaust departed with little nourishment to satisfy hunger.
Many families were killed, many children were orphaned, and many others lost their loved ones. The movie ‘Innocent Voices’ depicts one family and focuses their struggles through the harsh times. There were many consequences that were bravely faced by the people of El Salvador, but the bravery Khan 3 did not long last as they died horrible deaths in the hands of hundreds of army men that were in control of most of the territory. Moving onto another problem that was face by the people of El Salvador was the privation of a religious leader.
The Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot were both rejecting any features of the modern world. This makes then so eager to get Cambodia back to "year zero". Pol Pots idea behind year zero was that all the culture and modern traditions within a society should be completely discarded. When Pol Pot took charge in 1975 he wanted his desire for an agrarian society to happen. He single out all intellectuals in society, including: doctors, lawyers, teachers and executed them.
Loung and her family now have to run and lie from the Khmer Rouge and try to be safe. The intended audience of First They Killed My Father are the people who lack knowledge of the Khmer Rouge incident as they may be able to sympathize with Ung and her life. The purpose of this memoir
Throughout the reading, Herr explains how much him and the other soldier had to endure. The book is written in first person point of view by Michael Herr. The book is a non-fiction novel, it is not like any other reading, it allows the reader to paint a picture in their brain, while they are reading it. It grabs a person interest throughout the book. The writing kind of moves back and forth in time, but mainly focuses on two main events: the Battle for Hue during the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Keh Sanh.
One example from the novel comes from Hong when she and Amah are reunited with the rest of the Ung family. Hong tells them about her own Khmer Rouge experience. Chou narrates Hong’s story and says, “ Hong tells them about how she saw a young boy beaten to death with sticks because the soldiers said he was lazy. Hongs words come out in spits and anger when she reports that the boy was slow with his work because he was sick and starving… After that Hong became the best worker in her unit even though she was many years younger than the others. ”(pg55)
The first stage of the Khmer Rouge regime was to send the 2 million cambodians to labor camps to work on farms where there wasn’t enough food, little medical attention and harsh working conditions (“Killing Fields”, 2008). They were forced out of their homes and forced on a long journey which showed to be dangerous for the very young and old, as many of them ended up dying along the way. Soon after many more died from starvation and random executions (Spangenburg and Moser 56-57). If you lived in Cambodia during that time, you would be sent to a labor camp without any choice, and without any information of where you were going. They didn’t give them any food when they were on a monthlong journey and many ended up starving.
This quote is from Loung, who reiterates an explanation given to her by her older brother about the Khmer Rouge. This piece of text shows us the deep division that the Khmer Rouge has with other countries and
“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey” (Miyazawa). In the book First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung, the idea of strength is explored throughout the description of the events during the Cambodian genocide. The Khmer Rouge forced labor, starvation, death and despair onto millions of people in the late 1970s. The story is told by a survivor, Loung Ung, who persisted through the torturous pain and used what she learned as a survival technique. Ung builds the idea of strength by developing the theme leaving behind people and objects in the past builds emotional strength in order to explain experiencing difficult times is essential for development and survival.
All intellectual, educated or wealthy people who opposed the Khmer Rouge were eliminated. The disabled, old, ill and young who were in no condition to work were either driven out of their towns or killed on the spot. A slogan that described Pol Pot’s rule was 'To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss.’ Cambodians at this time were treated harshly, surviving on minimum rations, living in public communes with constant food shortages and epidemic
At some point of your life you meet very special people that carry very similar interests. This creates bonds that can be a very powerful and important part of your life. Some may say that bonds are created between a series of negative events that leads up to friendship. However, this is not true because in The Way, the main characters come together to walk the same path. Each character motivates each other to achieve the overall reason of why they wanted to walk The Camino De Santiago.
In the film Extreme Measures someone can find ideas of Secular Ethics throughout the film involving Utilitarianism and its basic tenets along with Kantian analysis. The basic tenets of Utilitarianism include the principle of utility, Hedonism, and the viewpoint of a disinterested and benevolent spectator. While the tenets of Kantian Ethics, which include good will, the formula of universal law, the formula of the end itself, and the categorical imperative. These basic ideas setup arguments for and against the Utilitarian ideas set up by doctor Myrick. In the film doctor Myrick makes the claim that it is worth the deaths of unwilling subjects in order to help/save the lives of millions.